


Together

by WahlBuilder



Category: Mars: War Logs
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - TechNoir, Artificial Intelligence, Love, M/M, Mind Meld, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 06:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15902394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Tenacity, Innocence and Roy attempt to merge.





	Together

‘It is dangerous,’ Roy says. ‘It might be unpleasant.’

He’s been repeating it for days. Normally, it’s Innocence who would be reminding them that only one of them is technically immortal (even though Tenacity has seen the boy jump into the fray more than once, disregarding risks). Sometimes, Tenacity himself has to remind them.

But not Roy. If you wanted to launch yourself head-on into a fight or any kind of danger, Roy would respect that. Roy would always respect everyone’s decisions, even if he thought they were stupid decisions.

Tenacity wonders whether that’s a part of the design—or simply Roy.

‘Haven’t we talked about it?’ Innocence says. His blue eyes on Roy.

A mistake many people make: taking a look at Innocence and thinking he’s naive, malleable. That he can’t protect himself.

He can outstubborn Tenacity and Roy combined.

He is looking at Roy, so calm, hands on his lap.

Roy’s eyes don’t change aperture. He doesn’t move. His ability to remain completely still has saved their lives several times, and sometimes it’s damn unsettling to see—because it means he has retreated into himself. Not even into the network of his kin that he barely brushes anymore, but entirely into the depths of his own being. Shutting himself from the world. Like they are nothing, like they don’t exist.

Tenacity hates when Roy shuts them out like that.

But now, Roy is not shutting them out. He sways away from Innocence and Innocence’s calm gaze, and those differently coloured eyes stop on Tenacity.

Tenacity shifts from his sprawl in the armchair to a straighter pose.

‘It is dangerous,’ Roy says again, his voice flat, unlike the usual. Tenacity thinks he’s modulating his emotions out on purpose.

Tenacity grips the beaten armrests. ‘You’ve said it, what, fifteen times already?’

Roy looks away. ‘Sixteen.’

‘Roy,’ Innocence calls. He has gotten to his feet. ‘Roy. It’s all right.’ He goes to Roy and wraps his arms around him and Roy closes his eyes with a sigh, suddenly very human.

‘I don’t want to hurt you, is all,’ he murmurs into Innocence’s hair, his hands coming round him in turn.

 _Hurt you again_ is unspoken.

They have a connection—of course they do, Roy and Tenacity from years ago, then the two of them with Innocence, since Innocence has brought Roy to Shadowlair (or Roy has brought him?). It allows them to exchange messages, to talk. It is secure, bypassing transmitters and towers, because Roy is their own transmitter, because he keeps an encrypted channel for them in some esoteric parts of the Veb.

But it is not the same. Not what they want to attempt.

Tenacity had attempted it with a guy once, but they couldn’t… Well. It ended in a pile of awkwardness and a headache for the both of them.

Temperance huffs in his sleep in the corner, the tiny bed under him in tatters from his massive frame and titanium spines. He doesn’t have to huff or to breathe at all. Just like Roy. But Roy breathes, and the hound breathes, and there’s a reason why Tenacity chose that particular name for his S/HRMP companion.

‘You won’t hurt us,’ Innocence says then tilts his head up and kisses Roy lightly.

Good job. Roy needs to be distracted.

Roy closes his eyes. Then nods. ‘Get on the bed.’

When Tenacity bought this apartment, the first thing he changed was the bed. He needed a big bed because sometimes his hounds wanted to cuddle. Temperance prefers his tiny bed made for tiny handheld pets, and Tenacity now gets to use all that space for other things. Even though all three of them have spells of insomnia. Even though one of them doesn’t even need to sleep at all.

Tenacity sweeps his hair away from his face and ties it, shrugs off his jacket, though he leaves the shirt on. Innocence props himself on the pillows, and Tenacity joins him there. He finds Innocence’s hand on the coverlet and squeezes.

The window is covered with waves of rain, even though the weather station glowing in the lower left corner shows ‘clear’. Roy must have activated the illusive rain to block out the world. The sound is soothing.

Roy is a lone figure against the window, the lights of the city a colourful smudge behind him. Roy removes the sleeves of his jacket, but no more.

It is difficult to tell sometimes that Roy isn’t human. His gestures, his movements—when he wants it—are not economical, they have a lot of ineffectiveness: fidgets, twitches—those things that characterise humans.

Roy places himself between them on the bed, standing on his knees—and it is them who reach to him like supplicants. It is… mesmerising.

Roy’s eyes glow, golden and blue. He puts his hands on their faces, cupping jaw, turns his gaze from one to another. His hand is hot on Tenacity’s skin. ‘Ready?’

They sigh in unison, as though already connected. ‘Yes.’

Tenacity doesn’t know what to expect. The room gradually fades away, only the sound of rain remains. It is not like entering the Veb where you blink and find yourself in the cyberspace.

Then, he feels another presence, weaving himself into his own, like two streams joining. He trembles, the stream muddying for a few moments, but Innocence’s warmth settles him. It is like being wrapped in a blanket.

He thought, somehow, it would be like talks through their channel. A voice in his head.

It is nothing like that.

His worry is dark grey, though, because he doesn’t feel—

He gasps, in his body, with his whole being, when they are merged with Roy, too.

It is like being plugged right into the whole universe.

Tenacity is dimly aware of his physical body arching up, of Innocence’s presence flaring beside and around and inside him. Of himself, expanding. He is the cradle of stars. He is the wave rushing through a galaxy. He is a vibrating molecule.

They are together.

Stars burn out and life begins and ends before Tenacity is eased back into himself. His _self_.

The rushing rain comes into the foreground of his perception, then other sensations: the soft coverlet, the drag of his shirt against his scars. His weight, anchoring him. The shape of his body. Wetness on his cheeks. A hand closed on his fingers.

Tenacity rolls onto his side and clutches at Innocence with a shaky sigh, and Innocence’s hand twists in his shirt, his lips smearing kisses over his cheeks, his nose, his eyelids.

Sensations flare: it is _him_ smearing kisses, and him twisting a hand in a shirt, and him lying beside that, and him standing over them on his knees…

‘Fuck,’ he whispers. Or maybe it’s not him. He can’t tell. He breathes. He doesn’t have to breathe. He moves. He doesn’t move. Innocence is trembling in his arms, hot like in fever.

Innocence’s love is like a burst of golden honey on his tongue.

‘That, it is,’ Roy murmurs.

Tenacity manages to open his eyes—feels Innocence doing the same.

The glow of Roy, that white-blue with golden veins surrounding him when he is being himself, is already fading. He is more human, but Tenacity—Innocence—they don’t want him to pretend. He doesn’t have to.

They pull him down to lie between them. With them.

They are together.


End file.
